A subtle mix of identity and tensions over resources such as land is giving new impetus to the resurgent ethnic nationalism, now poised to drive global politics for generations. Parochial identity politics linked to ethnicity, racism and xenophobia, which touched off the deadly ‘internal’ or ‘civil wars’ in Africa and former Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, has increasingly eclipsed the vision of a civic nation and impeded democracy’s progress from Cote d’Ivoire to Kenya, Somalia to South Africa and the Sudan to Zimbabwe.

Three questions are key:-

·         What is the connection between the explosion of violent conflict involving ethnic groups and existing land use and ownership patterns?

·         To what extent have existing post-colonial development policy frameworks relating to land reform and resource allocation contributed to injustices and inter-ethnic exploitation and deprivation?  

·         Are there ways in which communal identities could be reconciled with the need to mobilize resources, alleviate poverty and food insecurity, combat epidemics like HIV/AIDS and broaden the space for social justice and civic citizenship?

A tenuous lethal connection

Obviously, the causal link between ethnic conflict and land (including land-based resources) is not crystal clear.  Yet, exponents of the ‘greed and grievance’ thesis have routinely evoked land and other resources as the root-cause of the recidivistic ethnic violence and bouts racist or xenophobic attacks now signifying the crisis—or even curse--of the African state. However, Africa’s stalled democratization process has stridently transformed land into a political tool which is widely and instrumentally used by Africa ’s predatory elite in its struggle for state power. From Cote d’Ivoire to Kenya and Zimbabwe , factions of Africa ’s political elite have cynically exploited genuine ethnic grievances and differences over land and other resources to win or retain state power, often with utter impunity.

Preparing the ground for this instrumental use of land for political ends are oftentimes skin-deep and corruption-ridden post-colonial land reform initiatives. Sadly, these land reform strategies have tended to replace historical injustices inflicted by racially skewed colonial patterns of land use and ownership with new tenure regimes marked by gender, class and ethnic distortions and deprivations.

A subtle mix of Africa ’s shrinking job, credit and investment markets and the specters of poverty, food insecurity, epidemics like HIV/AIDS in the context of the impact of climate change and global crisis has turned land an axis of competition and crisis. Even more dangerous, it has amplified tensions over resources, water, pasture and tourist-attracting fauna and flora along the farmer-herder identity fault line.   

Regional dimensions

The presence of cross-border ethnic identities has turned ethnic-based internal wars into ‘regional conflict formations’ or ‘complexes’ linked to global forces. Coupled with this, the quest for regional integration in Africa has also taken on board the regional dimensions of ethnic conflicts and citizenship crises. In that regard, regional integration schemes like the East African Community and the African Union have embraced a strong agenda and erected architectures to tackle the security threats posed by ethnicity and resource based conflicts within the region.  To this end, the ELC project seeks to draw from the comparative insights and experiences of other African States, especially in Southern Africa where a poisonous blend of ethnicity, race and class has generated a hemorrhaging conflict in Zimbabwe and exposed Namibia and South Africa to the risk of conflict over land.  

Facing the future

The ELC project is designed to contribute to the deepening of knowledge on the larger crisis of the state, democracy and development in Africa .  The study proceeds from a field-based research orientation by country-based teams to rigorous and broad-based consultations intend to inform debate and advocacy on appropriate policies. During the process of research, periodic policy briefs, reports, think-pieces and opinion pieces will stimulate intellectual and policy debates ahead of the main book-length report at the tail end of the project. 

Ultimately, research findings from the project are expected to inform policy by governments, regional bodies and Africa ’s external partners as well as advocacy by non-governmental agencies and networks working to promote human rights, social justice, humanitarian ethos and democratic governance.  Hopefully, lessons from this research project focusing on the experiences of the four eastern African countries will contribute to the search for lasting solutions to the transformation of land use, ownership and access in ways that create stable democracies in Africa . This conference serves as both a methodology seminar as well as a brain-storming session to launch the project.

A note on Implementation Partnerships

The ELC project is conceived as a two-tier partnership involving international, regional and national think tanks, research and advocacy-oriented organizations.  The first tier involves the Africa Policy Institute, an independent, pan-African think tank devoted to promoting high-quality field-based research and analysis on governance, peace and development issues to inform policy debate and formulation; the Peace, Conflict and Development Research Initiative of the IDRC and World Vision International (Africa), which brings into the partnership a strong advocacy angle. The second tier consists of research institutions and think-tanks in Eastern Africa and across Africa , whose researchers and experts are involved in the project.